Thanksgiving was small this year. Just me and my husband and our kids. I invited my friend Ashley over because her husband was out of town for work and I don’t think people should be alone during the holidays.

Luckily, my husband loves me a lot and knew I was way too busy to get any actual holiday planning done, so he ordered Thanksgiving dinner this year!

Thumbs up!

Dinner was a success!

After dinner and dessert, Ashley brought out some of her knitting that needed a little TLC. Not too long ago she had a (gasp!)…moth problem, but she also had a shawl that had a burn. Of course, about the time I was going to Google “darning”, the internet took a dump. I had to wing it.

I know I have been pretty quiet lately. Life has me incredibly busy. I can’t ever sit still and I always need to be making things. It’s been so hard to focus….I fee like I have crafty ADD.

I just started weaving. Yes, just what I need….ANOTHER hobby. I really love it though. It is super relaxing and a pretty great stash burner. Of course, now I want to bring ALL THE TOOLS into my place. I recently bought myself a small tapestry loom from Board and Bread. It’s gorgeous and great to work on. I bought myself a larger loom from Loom and Spindle on etsy, which is also a great starter loom. I ended up staining it a bright teal color.

My new Board and Bread loom.

Weaving with my daughter.

I had some embroidery hoops left over and, on the weekends, I’ve been helping her warp them so she can weave too.

Passing it on…

A larger wall hanging for my Mom.

So you can see, I just can’t get enough. I’ve already warped the looms back up and am ready to jump into some more weaving…well, as soon as the heatwave ends…

Last Saturday Night was the Iron Giant Tribute Show at community/A Little Known Shop in Anaheim, CA. Hooray!! My very first art show!

My family taking a look at all of the awesome art!

Community is a great little space that has small shops, gallery space, a craft space and a great walkway in-between where all sorts of vendors had set up their tables. They had food and music in the back!

Shopping and food!

I got the chance to catch up with my friend Kati who was in town for the weekend.

My mother insisted that I get a picture next to my tapestry. She’s really into sharing this kind of stuff with her friends.

My mother insisted I get this picture for her….

We had a great time and it was so nice to see old friends and meet some new people. I also bought a few things in the shop!

There really is something special about seeing folks create projects with yarn that you have spun.

Last CogKNITive Fiber Retreat, I had donated some yarn for raffle prizes. The stuff you see below was from that donation. My friend Loretta (who is seriously one of the sweetest people I have ever met in my life and is amazing with a crochet hook) got her hands on it and made the lovely cowl you see below.

While I am off being busy with work and kids and life, I thought I would take this quick opportunity to give my friend a well deserved signal boost.

My friend Karen is fabulous knitter/designer/animal lover/human being who designed a pattern to help out our local animal shelter. Check out her press release below…

BURBANK ANIMAL SHELTER TO BENEFIT FROM RELEASE OF “BINDI’S PATH”

Paw-Print Knitting Pattern Based on Real Life Rescued Cat

LOS ANGELES, CA (April 15, 2014) Karen Eckhoff has released “Bindi’s Path”, a scarf, stole and cowl pattern set with two-way wavy paw prints reminiscent of her epileptic cat Bindi’s wobbly path through life. Diagnosed with Idiopathic Epilepsy, Bindi was rescued by the Volunteers of the Burbank Animal Shelter and put up for adoption. Given 50/50 odds of living to her first birthday, in 2014, Bindi turned ten. “Bindi’s Path” is a tribute to her tenacious attitude and sweet disposition. The pattern is available at http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/bindis-path. 100% of the profits from its sale will go directly to the Volunteers of the Burbank Animal Shelter (http://thevbas.org/), the organization that saved her life.

Says Eckhoff, “Bindi arrived at the Burbank, CA animal shelter as a six week-old feral stray, having seizures, flea-infested, blind, deaf, and missing a claw. Instead of putting her to sleep, the volunteers took her to the vet and put her up for adoption. Bindi has residual brain damage but has regained her vision and hearing. She is wobbly and has frequent “gravity breaks”, but her seizures are well-regulated with medication. She doesn’t meow or purr, but instead growls. She is quite a little character, and I love her dearly. Though she sometimes struggles, I wouldn’t change a thing about Bindi. She’s perfect as she is. I decided to combine my love of cats and my passion for knitting in order to not only celebrate Bindi’s life, but to give back to the very shelter that gave me so much when they allowed me to adopt her.”

Today is a big day! I just dropped my little girl off at Girl Scout camp and she is off to enjoy a weekend of fun in the wilderness with a bunch of her friends.

I had posted a picture of her for my friends and relatives to see and was asked if she had a sit-upon. I didn’t realize these things had been around for so long. I don’t remember making one when I was in Girl Scouts, but my mom and aunt remember making them when they were kids…and they have a significant amount of years on me.

For those of you who don’t know what a sit-upon is, the Girl Scouts of America defines it as “A lightweight pad or mat used when sitting on the floor or ground.” Pretty self explanatory.

The supplies…

My daughter had missed one of her Brownie meetings while my parents were in town visiting, so we needed to play catch up. As part of earning her first badge, she made a pretty snazzy sit upon. My mom and I found the supplies at our local JoAnn’s and she put it all together with minimal help.

Marking for the holes…

Lacing it up!

All finished!!

Now she has it packed up and ready to use it on her first camping trip!

I was excited about wearing my Celestarium, because I had purchased a brand new shawl pin for it. It’s pretty cool, because it’s a spiral. You can sorta see it in the picture above. It’s orangey gold and it looks great with the gray yarn. I bought it because it reminded me of a little spiral galaxy.

Uh oh.

Then something crazy happened. We found ourselves back at Judy’s looking through her fleece samples. The three of us put a hold on four fleeces (our top three and one alternate) for next year. Oh my… I had better start spinning down my stash!!

Next year is going to be nuts.

My Celestarium.

A friend of mine had mentioned that she was scouring my blog for pics of my Celestarium, but couldn’t find any. Honestly, the pictures I had posted of this shawl were really kind of awful. I took the opportunity to have someone snap a photo of it for me, just to repost.

The Haul (minus fleece).

This is what I ended up coming home with. That felt birdhouse was a gift for my mom. Everything else is mine, all mine! It really doesn’t look like a lot, but I spent quite a chunk of my budget on buttons.

Maribel and I met for Knit Lunch last week! On this particular occasion, it was just the two of us.

Back in the day, when we were working together on that cartoon, we would meet up with a few other folks to crochet during lunch. She loves little amigurumi and doll patterns. She did a fabulous job, but I remember that she had some mishaps because crocheting with black yarn is incredibly difficult.

Happy New Year! Well, I have been celebrating the New Year with mass consumption of chocolates and lots of knitting. Of course, all of my current knitting projects are top secret crafty Christmas presents and the projects that I have completed can’t be posted yet because they haven’t yet reached their intended destinations. This is pretty much all I can give you… My kids are high on the rubber band bracelet craze. Rainbow loom, Crazy loom, whatever you want to call them, the kids have been asking for them. I knew that they were getting looms for Christmas, so I started checking out Pinterest for different pattern ideas. While I was searching, I found a pin where someone stuck two thumbtacks on a wine cork to make a portable option for making single and fishtail bracelets. I grabbed what I had lying around the house and made one. I handed it to the kids with one of my crochet hooks and they were in business, cranking out bracelets left and right! They even made me some!